Are we at the stage where there's a major rebuild needed?

[life on mars]

If you run a business, surely it's standard practice to see what other similar businesses are doing, what they do successfully, what hasn't worked, and copy/tweak to suit. If lots of us fans can suggest what is wrong, how on earth can supposedly top businessmen not see it?

In my experience you study other business models , see where their gaps are and seek niche opportunities in the market and then exploit and diversify them to your benefit .

[Rjk]

If you run a business, surely it's standard practice to see what other similar businesses are doing, what they do successfully, what hasn't worked, and copy/tweak to suit. If lots of us fans can suggest what is wrong, how on earth can supposedly top businessmen not see it?

yes but football is also packed full of dinosaurs who are very resistant to anything new

[the other bob wilson]

If you run a business, surely it's standard practice to see what other similar businesses are doing, what they do successfully, what hasn't worked, and copy/tweak to suit. If lots of us fans can suggest what is wrong, how on earth can supposedly top businessmen not see it?

I go back to this feeling that the top echelons at the club believe that Cardiff City have a tradition of playing direct, long ball football of the sort we've played since around the time we appointed Malky Mackay and it's what the club's supporters want to see from their team. In my experience, Cardiff City fans have always wanted their team to give their all and "get stuck in" type players have tended to be popular with supporters down the years.

However, you only have to read some of the posts on here looking back on the Dave Jones years to realise that there is also a recognition and appreciation of players who could get them out of their seats because of their ability, not their slide tackles. I've had more than enough of the sort of stuff we been producing for the last ten years and always groan when we go back to our default setting of launching it long or relying on set pieces when we're struggling, as we so often do, to produce anything worthwhile from open play.

Neil Harris talks about us and Millwall having fans who want the same things from their teams and I know what he means up to a point, but when we were leaving the ground on one of those days when Bothroyd, Chopra. McCormack, Burke, McPhail, Whittingham etc had turned it on was there anybody who was saying "yes, but we didn't win enough second balls, didn't impose ourselves enough physically and didn't take advantage of our set pieces enough?".

[bigjoe]

We lurch from one thing to the next with seemingly no strategy.

This was very apparent with MM, OGS and Slade. MM built on steady eddies. OGS bought in the "flair" players. When Slade came in, he would have been better off with the team before it had all been changed.

It's why Swansea was successful for a while (and finding a few strikers that could actually score).

[City123]

Yes and we have been for a while. There's no clear playing style, no clear direction from the board, no path into the first team from our academy, we just hope for the best

What's particularly annoying about all that is in spite of our complete lack of plan, we've been relatively successful over the last decade. A League Cup final, 2 promotions, 3 play off campaigns and never finishing below the top half of the Championship. Imagine what we could have achieved with a plan

[Harry Paget Flashman]

A vision and a plan needs to come from the board not the manager, preferably a director of football

Managers are not directors.

Which is exactly what I said.

[Rjk]

Which is exactly what I said.

Then you were exactly right

[surge]

To introduce a wider point on basis of what board have been doing off the pitch in terms of longer term planning:

i) debt reduction
ii) new facilities built or planned: house of sport version i, ii, ground expansion and plans for new training base plus new academy training base
iii) this past 12 months have seen greater discussion about youth development and hired David Hughes to oversee youth development

Action has been taken off the pitch while what has been done of the pitch has been fixed up with gaffer tape.

[Fatty Thornton]

Regardless of whether Harris is, or isn't, the right man for the job.

Is this the end of what Warnock started? Only Ralls, Bennett and Morrison are players who were at the club before Warnock became manager. Only 10 players survive from our failed Premier League season.

If we're going to move forward in terms of tactics, keeping hold of players that don't do those tactics justice is an obvious no-no. We're seeing that players struggle to pass the ball well. It's absolutely true that things like that mean little to Warnock, who moulded an unlikely team into an automatic promotion outfit. Sadly, there were cracks in it after relegation and Warnock's previous good work was undone.

Are we at the stage where we need a clearance and a refocus on what we need? Have the players themselves gone as far as they can?

Yes, I know there's not much money available, but a skilled manager can work well on little. I'm feeling like a return to the PL is several seasons away and dependant on Tan's pocket. I'm also feeling that the structure of the club is wrong.

Worrying times. Are we closer to League 1 or the fabled Premier League?

The last time I can remember us mixing youth and experienced players, turning a profit on players we bought and playing an entertaining style of football was under Dave Jones. The 'nearly' men of that era were enjoyable to watch (they had their moments mind!), but ultimately a less attractive and exciting brand of football got us promoted on two occasions. What came with that was the change in ownership and myopia from Tan and the board.

Sport is a business, and you have to move with the times. Successful clubs often have adapted or adopted new ways of working, just look at Norwich for example. My opinion, look at the best and how they operate, using Sporting Directors or the like.